The Ring of Gyges

If I mentioned a ring that allowed the wearer to become invisible, would you think of J.R.R. Tolkein’s LORD OF THE RINGS? And if I said the name of the owner of the ring began with G, would you say Gollum? If so, you’re obviously not paying attention and didn’t read the title of my dlog.

Apparently Plato wrote about such a ring and it was found by a shepherd called Gyges. To cut a long story short, Gyges found the ring, discovered its power and used the invisibility to make himself king. I think the point of the story was to explore whether people behave themselves because everyone can see what they’re doing. If a person knows no one can see them, will they still do the right thing?
Well, I guess that’s a question each person has to answer him or herself. I still wouldn’t be able to get the lid off the biscuit tin whether I could be seen or not, so I’m not sure a ring would be useful to me.
But it set me thinking about how such a ring might work. After all, one day any of us might come across a piece of jewellery like the Ring of Gyges, (or even the genuine article) and we need to know the nuts and bolts.
So, let’s pretend I have such a ring. I assume anything I touch, such as my clothes would also be invisible? I think this must be the case, otherwise, it would be pointless me being invisible as my outfit would be walking about announcing my presence. But if anything I touched, such as my clothes, were invisible, would that extend to something I held, like a bag, for example? And suppose I brushed up against something, would that become invisible and then reappear? And what about the ground? If I’m standing on it, that too would become invisible. Anyone without the Ring of Gyges wouldn’t know what was going on if the ground suddenly disappeared beneath them. Obviously, there is more to this than meets the eye and there must be rules of invisibility governing the ring.
Perhaps the only things that become invisible are those that my skin touches, such as my scarf, socks, hat etc. I would have to be careful not to sit in a chair or open a door without gloves. But suppose I wanted to wear shoes with my socks? Would people see a pair of shoes walking about?

It seems to me that finding the Ring of Gyges would present quite a headache. If you ever come across it, take my advice and do a body swerve. Unless, of course, it comes with a user manual, in which case, I’d read it carefully first before making off with the ring. Make sure you read all the small print.

I suppose you could look up user manual for the Ring of Gyges on Amazon buy one on the off chance – just to be prepared. But if you can’t find such a guide, why not purchase either of the Old Girl’s books. Don’t worry if you’re planning to be out ring-hunting and you’re not going to have much time to read. Her latest book is 100 stories of exactly 100 words. So you can read a whole story before you even know you’ve started. And still have 99 more to read. So, get yourself a copy of THE GREAT WAR – 100 STORIES OF 100 WORDS HONOURING THOSE WHO LIVED AND DIED 100 YEARS AGO. Yes, I know it’s a bit of a mouthful. You can get it as a paperback and ebook here.

And there’s also DAFFODIL AND THE THIN PLACE. You can get it as an ebook from the Muse it Up Publishing site here and it’s available from other ebook retailers. You can also get it in paperback format from Amazon, here.